Nigel Farage has hit back at Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader referenced him at PMQs to claim the Tory party is now in hoc to racists and conspiracy theorists.
Sir Keir accused the Conservative Party of “dancing to the tune” of Mr Farage, after former PM Liz Truss suggested the former UKIP leader may be needed to revive the Tories after an election defeat.
The Labour leader demanded to know whether Mr Farage would be joining the Conservative Party, before going on to accuse the right-wing politicians of backing Enoch Powell.
He told the Commons: “This diverse Tory party just welcomed Nigel Farage”.
“This is the same Nigel Farage who said he agreed with the basic premise of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech, and bemoaned the influence of the ‘Jewish lobby’.
“So is the Prime Minister simply too scared to stand up to the gaggle of Tory MPs, who moonlight as GB News presenters, or does he genuinely think Nigel Farage shares the ideals and values of the Tory party?”
Following the broadside, Mr Farage slammed Sir Keir for the “extraordinary attack” at PMQs.
The Reform UK president fumed that the Labour leader “must have forgotten that millions of Labour voters agree with me (rather than him) on stopping mass migration and our increasingly unrecognisable cities”.
It was also pointed out that many more 2019 Conservative voters are now backing Reform over Labour, and therefore Sir Keir’s attack was misguided.
A fortnight ago a new poll was published suggesting that 19 percent of 2019 Tory voters are planning to back Mr Farage’s party.
By contrast just 9% of 2019 Conservative voters are now backing Sir Keir Starmer.
Mr Sunak did not comment on Sir Keir’s Nigel Farage attack, merely pivoting to a talking point about there Rochdale by-election.
He said voters in the northern constituency tomorrow have a choice of “three former Labour candidates, two of which are antisemites.
“The truth is, his party is so mired in hate that despite three ex-Labour candidates standing he can’t back a single one of them”.
He concluded to the delight of his backbenchers: “We expel antisemites, he makes them Labour candidates!”
The Labour leader demanded to know when Mr Sunak will “stand up” to his radical MPs who used to try and beat Nigel Farage “now giving up and dancing to his tune”.
